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“A pretty girl like you shouldn’t eat alone.” The cheesy pickup line might have made me roll my eyes, but when I peered across the table to find a man who was hot enough for me to pretend it had been agoodpickup line, I lifted an eyebrow.

“How do you know I’m not waiting for someone?”

“Because I can tell. If you were waiting for someone, you’d be looking at the door every time it opened. You just keep staring at your food or drink, so you don’t expect anyone to show up.” He sat across from me in the booth without asking.

“Maybe I just like eating alone.”

“Again, you’d look happier if that was true.” He sat back in the seat, his gaze unnerving.

He was tall, but narrower than many of the men I dealt with. He wore a polo shirt, the buttons undone at the collar to show off a little bit of chest. His eyes were dark, intense, and they made me uneasy. It felt like he clearly was hiding something, something I didn’t want anything to do with.

Yet, for a reason I couldn’t understand, I struggled to tell him to get the fuck away.

Why?

Maybe it was because everything else in my life was such a mess, why not add a little more?

It was like having your phone fall to the floor, then deciding to pick it up and throw it against the wall. It made no sense, but people still did it.

And I still sat here across from this asshole. “What’s your name?”

He smirked as though he’d just won something. Maybe he had—who fucking knew? “Ergon.”

“That’s a weird fucking name.”

“What’s yours?”

“Grey.” As soon as it came out of my mouth, I winced. Maybe Grey wasn’t that usual, either. Who was I to talk crap about anyone’s name? “What are you doing here? Other than picking up girls who aren’t interested?”

He chuckled. “You’re feisty, aren’t you? I tend to like that, personally. It’s so much more fun than women who are dull. There’s nothing worse than a woman who is as entertaining as drying paint. I get bored easily, you see, but I could tell with one look at you that you weren’t boring.”

“Right, because a girl stuffing her face with nachos is exactly what any man is looking for.” As soon as I uttered that, it made me stop.

If that was what he was looking for, he had to be a freak, right? What was he, someone with a feeder fetish? Because while every woman dreamed at some point of getting fed grapes by some super-hot shirtless man, it had been a long time since my fantasies had gone in that direction.

I tended to have more weird fantasies now. Like getting abducted and the kidnapper ending up being super attractive, or my tax accountant having to deduct my pants one year. Maybe it was a sign of my damaged psyche. My point was that I certainly wasn’t into someone who liked to watch me eat.

That was too freaky for even me.

I went to stand, but realized the ground was moving around me. A glance at the margarita revealed I’d drunk much more of it than I’d thought, with the drink almost entirely gone. That accounted for the spinning room.

Except, Ergon didn’t spin. He stayed right there, staring at me the whole time, like reality twisted around him.

Be careful, little crow.

The words echoed around in my skull, and I scratched my ear as though to dislodge it. Knot had been missing in action for a while now, so I didn’t need echoes of his words, especially as a drunken hallucination. I’d prefer that if he had something to say, he’d come right out and say it. That would have been the polite thing to do.

“You don’t know your own limits, do you?” Ergon said and somehow was beside me so fast, it was like he didn’t even move. He slid an arm around my side, holding me up, keeping me from collapsing to the floor.

He was larger than me, and he held my body easily, trapping me against his side.

“I need to pay.” The words came out slurred, unclear. How had the alcohol hit me so fast?

It wasn’t that I wouldn’t get drunk—my manymanyantics before proved that to be a lie. It was just that I usually saw it coming. I’d eaten, too, so why the hell was I this out of it?

He reached into his pocket and took out a stack of bills. Anyone keeping that much cash on them was bad news, and as a former drug dealer to school children, I knew bad news. He tossed a few hundreds onto the table, more than enough for the cost of the meal and a good tip.

At least the servers wouldn’t get mad at me.